Bad Press
by Tim Cummings
Summary: A short story set in the X-Universe. Specifically, make that my X-Universe. Many of the characters work for my enterprises and there are facilities depicted that result from my actions in the game, though other facilities are part of every game. There are some references to "me", that is the player, but the player character does not appear in the story at all.


The trading station in the Herron's Nebula sector floats in the middle of the main asteroid field. The Lakuna completed her snaking course and glided to a stop between the outermost of the holobeacons marking the final approach lane. She slowly rotated in place, aligning with the approach, then gently accelerated.  
Kender Jarrit stood at the starboard viewport of the main salon, separated from the vacuum of space by four inches of transparent plasteel. Leaning close he could feel the cold. He watched the holobeacons pass slowly astearn. "You know, we could watch the show here. This is one of the most luxurious cruisers in space. This frontier outpost isn't likely to offer anything better," he said over his shoulder.  
"I don't want to watch the bloody show anyway," Ban Drenad grated back from the embrace of the leather wing chair. As usual, he was not looking at either view the main salon, which spanned the entire width of the ship, had to offer. Instead he glared at the tiny ripples on the surface of the amber liquid in his glass. "I just want to spend some time in rotation. I am sick to death of generated gravity fields."  
The Lakuna boasted some of the finest gravgens money could buy. Kender actually had to hold his breath to feel the tiny pulsation. Generated gravity always had at least some pulse to it, but if you had to concentrate that hard to notice it, or stare at the surface of your drink, it seemed a trivial inconvenience at best. "If we go non-stop we will be home, and planetside, that much sooner."  
"No shit. Been studying orbital mechanics? Non stop is faster! Maybe we should use that as the lead for our next story. I'm sure our viewers will find that totally enlightening."  
Kender sighed, but silently. Weathering the storms that often surrounded the on screen talent was part of an associate producer's job and he knew he could do worse than being stuck with Ban Drenad; a lot worse. "The sad part is that some of them probably would," he said, turning with a half grin and picking up his glass.  
"Ah, but where would we be without them, eh?" Ban said. He raised his glass slightly. "To the viewing public." He tossed back the last of the whiskey. "I'll meet you at the docking port. Don't leave without me."  
That would truly be the day, Kender thought to himself. He was basically Ban's baby-sitter. Leaving him to his own devices would be professional suicide.  
-

The ship gave a slight shudder as her engines surrendered to the docking fields. The fields rotated her into alignment. The docking hood swung down, then extended out over the top of the ship.  
Kender stood in the Lakuna's grand entry. He watched as the circular staircase lifted through the floor. It turned as it rose, appearing as if it were being screwed through the compartment from below. The access port irised open and the top of the stair locked into place just as Ban entered the room. He didn't give the impressive staircase a second glance as he started climbing, with Kender in his accustomed place off his right shoulder, but of course a step behind.  
The transition was smooth enough, but the docking hood's gravity field was nowhere near the quality of the field on the ship. Industrial grade, more efficient than comfortable. Kender sighed again. Silently. It was a habit. Whatever comfort Ban found in the rotation of the station would be forgotten. He would be complaining about the long trek through these industrial grade fields all the way back to Argon Prime.  
-

The core of the trading station is a huge cylinder full of hanger bays for small ships and storage containers for the goods that pass through. On one end of the cylinder are the access bays, were the smaller ships dock by the simple process of flying into the open bays. They are sealed into an energy field and then lowered into a hanger, which is then moved into the huge storage lattice like any other freight container. At the center of the other end of the cylinder is the hub.  
The hub connects the core cylinder to the great rotating barrel that surrounds it and the huge wing extending off the end of the station. The barrel rolls along endlessly, simulating about one third planetary gravity for the thousands of people who live and work there and the even greater numbers who come and go on whatever business drives them. The long wing structure, extending across the station centerline, provides the counter-rotation to the great barrel. Since the tips of the wings extend so far the rotation simulates full planetary gravity at the tips. The most desirable spaces in the station, occupied by luxury residences and high end offices, were in the nacelles at either end of the wing.  
Being too large for the internal bays, the Lakuna had docked at the external port, outside the rotating barrel. Ban and Kender rode a passenger lift along the freightway that ran the length of the station to the hub end. The gravity was slightly smoother than the docking hood had offered, but still not very smooth. Kender stood at a viewport, Ban sat in one of the efficient but hardly comfortable seats.  
"You are forever looking through some viewport. I don't know how you stand it. I'd puke."  
"I look into the distance." Kender actually had to admit this view was particularly disconcerting. The distant stars weren't affected at all by the motion of the lift, and even the much closer asteroid masses hung stationary against their frozen backdrop. But the surface of the rotating barrel rushed towards him, passing scant meters under the floor of the lift. Add to that the motion of the lift as it rode along the bottom of the freightway and the surface of the drum took on an apparent diagonal movement that was clearly at odds with the generated gravity in the lift. Above the viewport the surface of the freightway spooled smoothly past from left to right, clashing with both. Now that his attention had been called to it Kender really couldn't take it either, so he sat down and joined Ban, staring around at the drab interior of the lift until it reached the end of the drum, then turned and dropped to the hub.  
-

Their lift deposited them in the busy hub of the station. In this large plaza the three components of the station all tied together. Kender expected Ban to head towards the access lifts that would take them into the wing. That would be the place to find the best bars and restaraunts. Ban turned instead to the spoke lifts. These lifts radiated out from the hub like spokes in a wheel, each leading to one of the main avenues that ran the length of the rotating barrel.  
"Do you know where you're going?" Kender asked.  
"There's a place called The Rim Club. Clear at the end of corridor seven. Mostly locals. Mostly locals you would find at the far end of the station from the wing. People I can afford to snub if they happen to recognize me."  
-

Despite having said that he didn't want to watch the show, Ban settled on a stool squarely in front of the large vid screen behind the bar. Kender took the next stool, and turned to face him. He could be attentive if needed. He could also look past Ban's profile to admire the view. The Rim Club was indeed at the end of corridor seven, on the edge of the barrel. Outside the port the asteroid field and the distant stars slowly rotated as the club endlessly circled the station's centerline.  
Ban's first drink went down fast. Too fast, Kender thought. This was shaping up to be a tough night. As the bartender landed a second round the NewsNet logo appeared on the screen behind him and the familiar theme began to play. The logo faded, to be replaced by the smiling face of Ban Drenad.  
"Welcome to this week's Eye on Events, I'll be your host for the next hour as we take an in depth look behind the headlines to see what has been shaping our universe for the past seven days," the larger than life face intoned in the familiar intense voice. Kender compared the two faces. Lack of a camera and a fair amount of whiskey had Ban's face sagging in relaxation. The scowl was a sharp contrast to the full wattage smile on the screen. No makeup, hair slightly mussed; there was at least a fair chance no one would recognize him. Kender hoped for the best.  
On the screen Ban introduced the lead segment. On his bar stool Ban gave a derisive snort and gulped from his glass. "What crap," he announced. The lead segment, of course, was the most coveted position. Ban got more than his share of lead segments. Very seldom did he host the show. Among the anchors that position was referred to as 'the hostess without the mostest'. Although an outsider might think being the host would be coveted, insiders knew that the job of reading the trite connecting lines between the stories was grunt work given to someone who had no story of their own.  
Ban had 'trekked out to the hinterlands', as he called it, spent five days in Herron's Nebula, which was the scene of his greatest triumph, and come up with nothing. He had expected to have the lead. The producers, when they sprang for the lease on the Lakuna, had expected him to have the lead. Instead he was the host, having done the recording in what was very likely the most expensive mobile vid studio in the universe. Ban would catch hell when they got back.  
"How did we miss?" Ban asked. "I know that whoreson is dirty, so how did we miss?"  
Kender shrugged. He knew a rhetorical question when he heard it, and hoped that if he just let it go Ban would find something else to think about. Not likely. Ban had broken the MinShipper scandal three years ago and made a big enough name for himself that for a while instead of covering news he had been news. During that time whenever he had been asked how he got the story he had put on his 'aw shucks' face and said "with the tenacity of a dog on a bone, or a newsman".  
-

MinShipper was a transport company. They had started in Herron's, primarily handling minerals mined from the asteroid field. That's how they started, but what they became involved the other product Herron's is famous for; Argon whiskey. MinShipper transported the products of the only licensed distilleries in the region to licensed distributors. As Ban revealed, they also smuggled it out of Argon territory through a hazy web of Teladi shell companies.  
That web started unraveling with Ban's story and by the time the official investigation was done it had turned out to stretch all the way to Paranid space. The same operatives that smuggled the whiskey out were proven to have been complicit in smuggling Paranid operatives and weapons in...operatives who were responsible for attacks in the capital on Argon Prime. No doubt there were seemingly sensible reasons to cover this up, but when the story ultimately got out the coverup only made things worse.  
In the end the entire board of MinShipper had been convicted on smuggling charges and obstruction of justice, with some members who had been directly involved also given life sentences for assisting an enemy power in time of war; the next step down from treason. Three senators had been publicly connected to the case and forced to resign, and two others had quietly resigned for 'health issues' when threatened with further investigations.  
-

Kender knew that in his present mood Ban might be rude to a fan who recognized him. He scanned the bar. Most of the patrons were working class; strong people hardened by hard work. Herron's Nebula was at heart a mining community, and it showed. There were certainly people here who would not take an insult lightly, and who might well 'do something about it'.  
If Kender were as 'in touch' with events as he liked to believe his concern would have been more like dread. In the world of newsvids Ban Drenad was practically a hero, an award winner, the phrase 'crusader for truth' got thrown around with excess. In Herron's Nebula he was the guy that broke the story that put thousands of people out of jobs. He was also held personally responsible for the high price of liquor by many of the locals. The collapse of MinShipper had consequences, and they were sitting in a room full of the people who had suffered those consequences most directly.  
When MinShipper fell apart the distilleries, along with many of the mining operations in 'The Neb' had been left holding nothing but voided transport contracts. Product piled up, and in the desperate scramble the shipping companies had clearly held all the cards.  
As transport costs skyrocketed the mines had been forced to 'be more efficient'. At the distilleries the situation was far worse. Guilt by association with MinShipper hung like a cloud, and transport companies wouldn't even take their calls, much less negotiate a fair price. Hundreds were laid off, and the shipping bays filled with product...then thousands were laid off. The mine operators pointed to the vast numbers of unemployed and transportation costs as they turned the screws on their own workers. Pay cuts, lost benefits, whatever needed to be sacrificed on the altar of efficiency; it was all associated with the name Ban Drenad.  
Fortunately, Ban was disguised by more than his off camera and somewhat disheveled appearance. He was hidden by expectations. People see mostly what they expect to see, and the only thing the patrons of The Rim Club might have been more surprised to find sitting among them than Ban Drenard would have been the Priest Emperor of the Paranids. Their hatred of the three eyed leader of the evil enemy empire might have been greater, but that was debatable.

The station hub was a mass of people, but York Gilharno was an imposing figure and had little trouble pushing through. It got easier the more distance he put between himself and the access from the hanger bays as the crowds thinned out. He was twenty meters away with a clear sightline when Ban and Kender came out of the lift from the docking port. He road with them up the spoke to corridor seven and trailed along behind them totally mystified with where they could be going.  
At the Rim Club he got a small table near the door. He concentrated on keeping his face still while he used the subvocal transponder implanted in his jaw.  
"They are at The Rim Club. No idea why. If anyone recognizes him this place could explode. What do you want to do?"  
The voice was in his ear, literally. He had worn an earwig for much of his professional life, but was still getting used to the implant model. He managed not to jump. "Stand by."  
He ordered a drink and set about slowly moving the liquid from the glass into the absorbant dessicant he wore on his wrist. His employer certainly didn't scrimp on equipment costs. Twenty years in security and he had stuff on this job that he had only dreamed of before.  
The voice came back. "How many people?"  
"Thirty four, plus six staff, plus the two packages," he replied. "If a fight gets rolling I make twelve that would get involved, plus or minus three."  
"Could you protect the packages?"  
"Not without killing someone. Station security is at least eight minutes away once they get the call."  
"The boss doesn't want that kind of entanglement. We'd get you off, but during questioning you'd be made by the packages."  
"No doubt."  
"Okay. Hopefully they won't be recognized. Puffin's Nest will be in place for hot vac extraction in twelve minutes. Until then defuse and delay if necessary."  
"Got it."  
When Ban appeared on the vid screen York thought it was comparable to looking in a mirror. He scanned the room , flicking quickly from face to face, starting with those he had marked as most likely to cause trouble. Over the years he had developed a very sharp sense for troublemakers. He also had the judgement to not rely on that sense too heavily. He checked everyone, then checked them all again.

The bridge, like the rest of the ship's compartments, was dimly lit with red lights. The low frequencies had the minimum impact on the eyes, keeping the pupils dilated and giving the crew the best possible vision when they looked out into the darkness. The cold distant sun offered little light, and the densely packed asteroid field of Savage Spur blocked most of that. The transport floated amongst the asteroids, her engines barely ticking over as she held station.  
The captain's quarters had two hatches, one of which opened directly onto the bridge. Iovis Jergin erupted out of her cabin, mashing the activator for the alarm klaxon mounted on the frame as she passed. By the time she hit her acceleration chair reports were pouring in as regular watchstanders were relieved by their battle stations counterparts.  
"Spool the jump drive! Herron's, north gate," she barked. She touched the activation stud on the right armrest and her seat spun webbing across her thighs and up over her shoulders.  
"Herron's, north gate. Aye Captain," came the slightly shaky voice of a junior bridge crewman. "Charging."  
Iovis looked to the engineering panel and was pleased to see Gunther Kronis relieving the watch. "All engines and thrusters on line, jump drive spooling, anything else?" he said.  
"No sir."  
"I relieve you, keep the seat," he said. The jump count was sounding throughout the ship and had reached ninety percent. He grabbed the back of the seat and webbing spun over his hands. He flexed his toes and there was an audible click as his mag boots locked down at full power. Then the ship disappeared, and everyone in it had the impression that it, and they, had turned inside out, briefly.  
-

Aboard the Argon Collosus Space Shadow the appearance of the Yaki built Chokaro transport at the north gate was noted in the log. The officer of the deck didn't order any immediate action. Too many traders were using the military transport ships developed by the pirate faction for regular business. Space Shadow continued her slow progress along her patrol route, but a long range scanner channel was assigned to monitor the potential intruder.  
The appearance of the Yaki pocket carrier was also noted with interest on the bridge of the Puffin's Nest. The Puff, as she was affectionately known by her crew, was nowhere near as luxuriously appointed as the Lakuna, but she was built on the same Express Hauler platform. The owner's suite was very nice, and her passenger decks were comfortable enough, but she was a sturdy and more versatile craft. Her engines boosted her to top speed as the docking clamps fell away.  
In the guidance control center aboard the station an operator reported "Puffin's Nest is away." The control center supervisor acknowledged the report, then looked to Pael Hang, who nodded and returned to the auxilliary comm office that he had commandeered.  
He shut the door and activated the seal, then palmed the security locks on the comm unit. "Assets are in flight, in sector," he said.  
"Roger that," came the disembodied reply. The station manager was impressed. His security chief's report was barely distorted by the subvocalization. He'd been practicing. He'd also obviously been drilling the crew of the Puffin's Nest. They had gotten underway almost as fast as the Yaki.  
-

Three drops of whiskey spattered onto the table as the glass banged down. Bernis rubbed them up with her fingertips and glared at her large companion. "Gunne's bag! Just because I'm buying doesn't mean you should waste good liquor," she said.  
"Good liquor?" The voice rumbled out of the barrel chest, and Bernis was reminded of the sound of a drilling laser eating into an asteroid, as heard from the tunnels. "There hasn't been good liquor to be had here in years. Stills fired everyone who knew what they were doing. This batch tastes like Teladi piss."  
"Drink a lot of Teladi piss, Grudge?" another miner asked, and the table erupted in raucus laughter.  
Grudge's hard eyes narrowed briefly, but then he laughed too. "No Slider, but I had Malf piss in your canteen the other day. You thought it was your usual on the job get by, you drunkard, so you can vouch for the flavor." Everyone laughed again, and good or bad they drained their glasses and called for another round.  
Bernis tapped her cred bracelet on the table's reader. The night was going to be expensive, but you only live once and in the mines even that might not last all that long.  
-

York watched the patrons of the bar get drunker. Good and bad, he thought to himself. Good because drunks would be easier to put down if he had to, bad because the drunker they got the more likely it was that he would have to.  
He had acknowledged the report when the assets were on station for the extraction; eleven minutes instead of the estimated twelve. He'd give the Puff a stand down day as a reward. If they had to do the extraction and he survived he'd give them a week. Paying the Yaki mercenaries was above his pay grade, but he'd put in a good word for them too.  
The decision to work with the Yaki was above his paygrade too. Of course he knew when he took the job that there would be compromises. Even though the reporters had been completely stonewalled in their effort to connect Lock Fiddich Farms with the whiskey trade there was no way Mikhal Fiddich would hire a security chief who didn't know the connection was there.

The hour long news show was almost over. So far no one had remarked on the resemblance between the man drinking on the stool and the face that appeared intermittently on the screen. In fact the two reporters seemed to be the only people paying any attention at all to the vid screen. York was starting to think things might just work out.

With the Yaki transport and the Puffin's Nest in position, Pael Hang turned over operational control to York. The security chief was the man on the spot, and if the hot vac extraction was called for it was his call to make. He waited while York completed his comm checks with the two ships, then left the communications room and sealed the door.  
"I still have a secure channel running through that unit," he told the supervisor in the guidance control center. "There shouldn't be any more departures or arrivals other than the usual schedule until the Puff comes back. When they do they will be routine priority."  
"Okay." Like all management and operations personnel aboard the station, the supervisor knew that Loch Fiddich Farms was far more than the simple wheat farms it appeared to be. Their extremely high pay, more than half of which they received in untracable credchips, proved that well enough. He and the controllers did not need to be told that whatever had called for the emergency launch of Puffin's Nest wasn't a subject for speculation. "EB2 is due in before end of shift. I'll slot her into gamma 4 if the delay won't be a problem."  
EB2 was one of the station's energy delivery ships. In the long run the stored energy cells she carried were the lifeblood of the entire operation, but reserves in storage were more than sufficient to cover a short delay in her arrival. "That will be fine," Pael said, nodding his approval.

The arrival of EB2 would 'reveal' the damage at docking pod gamma.  
When a ship left the docking bay normally the clamping fields rotated her into alignment with the approach lane, then shut down. An emergency launch could be done in a number of ways, almost all of which left records in the equipment's internal logs. The launch of the Puffin's Nest, which had been in gamma 2, had left no such records.  
As soon as she was physically clear of the docking machinery she had just gone to full throttle and pulled away. The clamp generators at gamma 2 had overloaded, and would have to be replaced. There would be no record of that in the maintenance logs. The overload, and its cause, were not recorded by the gamma pod control unit because the gamma pod control unit had experienced a failure of its own. That failure would be revealed the next time a ship tried to dock at gamma pod. That unit also would be replaced, and a reasonable cause of failure would be recorded in the maintenance logs. The actual cause, the fact the unit had been shot with a hand laser, would not be recorded.  
Managing the interactions of so many automated record systems was the biggest part of Pael Hang's job. Shipping records at the farm matched purchase orders filled at the distilleries. Purchase orders filled at the distilleries showed that their resource consumption was consistent with their production. The fact that more than half of their production went unrecorded didn't matter, because more than half of their resource deliveries did as well. And more than half of their product left their facilities without a trace, paid for with the same sort of untraced cred chips that paid their salaries.  
The delivery freighter that carried wheat and energy to the distilleries from the farm complex always left full. During a very short interval near the midpoint of the short delivery run the freighter was in transporter range of both the distillery and the farm. The entire load would be transported off, and then replaced. On the return trip the empty freighter would very breifly contain the undocumented whiskey, transported aboard and immediately transported off. The freighter could be inspected at either end, and customs inspectors routinely did just that.

Pael stepped out of the lift into the core of docking pod alpha, one of four pods in the complex. He walked briskly towards bay alpha three. Workmen laying a heavy cable along the access paid him little notice as he went by. At the end of the access the port down into the docked ship was a jumble of cabling and hoses, with a large access left open beneath the tripod mounting of a grav crane and a smaller access with a ladder. A watchman stationed at a podium nodded and said "Evening, sir," as he logged him aboard the damaged ship.  
He climbed down the ladder into the huge transfer chamber. On a working ship gravity generators would produce shifting fields in this space to move cargo on and off the ship. Some of the original Paranid generators had been salvaged, others were too badly damaged and new units had been put in place. Some of the damaged units were still hanging askew. A small crew had one of them fixed in the field of a portable grav lift and were cutting away the twisted mounting structure.  
A petite Argon woman emerged from a passageway and waved. Pael made his way across the chamber. "Pael," she said as she shook his hand. "An inspection, or just a friendly visit?" She actually knew the answer, and had known since he passed the workers in the accessway.  
Every visit was an inspection, unless he called ahead and specifically said otherwise. If he was alone the inspection was a drill. If he was accompanied by Argon customs, or the reporters who had toured the facility on their witch hunt, or anyone else, then it was not a drill. Sometimes the inspectors came with a different guide, or unaccompanied. No matter the circumstances they were all handled the same way.  
"Just thought I'd stop in and see the progress."  
"Not a whole lot to see, but the replacement unit for the port bow thruster just came in today. I was headed down to take a look at it." She took a step towards a large passage leading forward and he fell in beside her.  
"I'll tag along then if you don't mind the company."  
"Always a pleasure," she said with a hint of a flirtatious smile.  
The cargo container holding the thruster was on a large grav lift in the middle of a hold; port upper three. The single container was dwarfed by the cavernous open space.  
"This hold has the best seals," she told him as they crossed to the lifter and climbed up the ladder. The access panel on the cargo container was open, and workmen could be heard shouting inside as they inspected the thruster.  
"So you'll be installing it from outside?" Pael said.  
"Yeah. Once we get it unpacked we'll depressurize and open the outer bay doors and haul it out. You'll be notified of course."  
"You've never let us down."

-

The ship belonged to a salvage company. All the workers, including the refit captain he was following, worked for them. The rebuilding of Paranid ships was fairly common. In the downturned economy of Herron's Nebula after MinShipper it was a favorite way to use extra docking space. H-Neb Retro had ships docked all over the sector.  
The captain had a short conversation with an engineer, then she and the station manager left the container and climbed down to the floor of the bay. She led him towards a large port that opened on the same main corridor as the smaller hatch they had entered through. Not an inspection, or even a tour, just a friendly visit. He just tagged along. She gave the seal equipment a cursory look, nodding satisfaction, and headed back out to the corridor.  
When they emerged Pael took the lead and headed across the wide passage. "Starboard upper three," he said, "isn't that where you had the hull breach?"  
"Last month," she said moving with him towards the hatch. "Let me show you the repairs."  
This was the drill. A friendly visit, inspector on a tour; it didn't matter. The crew was prepared for random movements, sudden choices. When they opened the hatch into the cargo bay it was empty. Any bay they entered would be empty, unless it had refit workers doing their work in accordance with the refit schedule.  
Any bay that could be reached by the visitors was empty, because as they progressed on their uncontrolled but carefully monitored path cargo was moved away from them by transporter devices hidden deep in the engine room. Pael knew from the inventory listings in his hand pad, which was not connected to any network and was protected by military grade encryption, that there were over three hundred cargo containers of Argon whiskey aboard this ship, plus a couple thousand containers of e-cells, and another thousand of wheat. At that moment he would have guessed that it was all in the bays off the lower aft corridor, and he would have been right.  
H-Neb Retro had similar projects at the docks of both distilleries.

Eye on Events was drawing to a close. Ban had no desire to watch himself giving the bland teases for next week's show. He turned to Kender and asked again, "How did we miss?"  
The shrug didn't work. Apparently this time the question was not rhetorical. "Maybe the farm is just a farm..." he ventured.  
"Seriously? You think the end of MInShipper was really the end of the whiskey business?"  
"Obviously not." Kender picked up his glass. "There are plenty of licensed sellers, like this one." He gestured with the glass, taking in the bar around them. "But look at the local economy. The distilleries laid off thousands of workers. This sector still hasn't recovered. Maybe the smuggling side of the business did get shut down."  
"Or maybe Fiddich is getting rich off of it."  
"Fiddich is getting rich. But there are a lot of ways to account for that besides smuggling. We went over the customs records with the best forensic accountants money can buy. We were all over that complex, and all over the distilleries. You slipped away for your own little unscheduled looking around...don't try to deny that to me. Maybe we didn't find anything because this time there is nothing to find. MinShipper was a home run, but maybe that pitch will never come your way again."  
As soon as the words were out of his mouth Kender wished they could be unsaid. He had meant that the next home run story would come from a different direction, rather than the whiskey trade, but he knew Ban was going to take it wrong.  
"MinShipper wasn't a once in a lifetime stroke of luck," he snarled with his voice rising on every word. "I broke that story through hard work. I didn't have any luck on my side."  
Kender looked at the bartender, who was turning his head slowly back and forth from Ban on the screen to Ban in the flesh. The harsh expression on the man's face caused things to shift in Kender's mind and fit together; the collapse of the local economy, the Minshipper story, the cold reception they had endured everywhere they stopped the past week, the extra security the Lakuna had brought on. Suddenly the spacious room behind him seemed to be closing in around him. 'We still don't have any luck on our side,' he thought.

York saw the bartender identify the reporter. A quick glance told him that no one else noticed, yet. He still had hope, but he subvocalized. "Stand by to go hot on my mark. The hot word is tango." He rose and moved quickly towards the bar.

Iovis Jergin stood up and crossed the bridge to the flight control station. She stood behind the crewman seated there with her legs braced wide, mag boots locked and one hand webbed into the back of his seat. She had risen to her own command by being prepared, and she was always ready for the ship to be jolted by an unexpected impact.  
"Okay," she said, "the hot word is tango. Nothing happens without my order, but everyone needs to know the orders to expect when you here the word. First?" She gave the seat a shake  
"Launch the birds," the flight control officer said promptly. "I will acknowledge, then report each launch. All three birds will be away in thirty seconds."  
"Next?" the captain asked without looking away from the launch panel.  
Gunther replied crisply from the engineering station, "When the second bird is away you will order the jump. I will spool the drive and the count will begin over main internal comms."  
"Unless?" the captain asked, turning towards the engineer, although that was not where her question was directed.  
"Unless there is a threat to the birds, in which case you will be ordering cover fire," said the weapons officer. "I will relay that order to the gunners and disengage the turret locks."  
"And I will engage thrusters and main engines for evasive maneuvers, on your mark, when the final bird is away," Gunther completed.  
"Helm?"  
"Covering course is plotted across the mouth of the trading station, top speed, orientation with turrets away from the station, range one kilometer. Updating every fifteen seconds as our position changes."  
Iovis was satisfied. "Hopefully we won't need that. If we do there will only be the one pass, then we jump." She turned to the scan plot and marked the position of the Argon carrier and her escorts. Everything depended on where that ship was when the moment arrived.

Prog Luna didn't know what to do. The bar was full of people who would cheerfully beat the man to death. For that matter Prog probably would himself. But he took his job seriously, and no one making their living tending bar wants to see a bar fight on their watch. Not the kind that ends with dead patrons and security closing the place down anyway.  
"You need to leave, quick and quiet, before anyone else recognizes you," he said quietly as he stepped in front of Ban.  
Kender slid off his stool like it was on fire, but Ban wasn't having it. Either drunk and belligerent, or just too enamoured with his own status, he pushed his empty glass to the far edge of the bar and said, "One for the road." He turned to look at Kender. "Sit down."  
The turning was unfortunate.

As drunk as he was Grudge still had survival instincts. In bars full of miners survival was directly connected to being aware of the surroundings. He knew the bartender had frozen midstep, and he knew the hard looking quiet guy drinking alone was moving towards the bar with a purpose. He had figured out that the bartender had seen something strange about the guys sitting at the bar.  
He had just asked Bernis, "Who is that guy?" and gestured towards Ban's back. Ban turned and his profile was outlined against the vid screen behind him. The vid screen where his face was just fading out. "Oh. Hey. He's the guy on the vid."  
That might have been the end of it. Grudge wasn't much of a news watcher, and he couldn't have put a name with the face on his own.  
"That's Ban frakkin' Drenad!" Bernis said. Her voice cut through all the noise in the bar, and it fell silent as Ban turned to her with his full wattage smile, expecting a fan.

Grudge and Slider were both on their feet and headed towards Ban before anyone else was moving. Their minds may have been a little fogged, but burning brightly at the center of each was the idea of wiping that smile off the face of someone they held responsible for ruining the lives of hundreds of friends...or at least acquaintances.  
York, who had already been moving, jolted to a stop drawing a laser pistol out of his coat.  
"Bodyguard!" Grudge threw himself sideways, angling away from the bar to York's left. Slider dove to the bar, rolling in the light gravity and coming up with a barstool wrenched free from its magnetic grip on the floor.  
Two guys. Both huge. Widely seperated and obviously experienced fighters who were familiar with each other. Five more rising from their table. This was a no win situation. He could shoot one and get killed by the others, and that would be that.  
"Hull breach!" he shouted. "Clear the compartment!"  
Other than the two reporters everyone in the room lived in space, and had for most if not all of their lives. Not one of them would ever 'cry wolf' about a hull breach. Most of them were moving before they had even registered who said it, and just kept going. Even Grudge and Slider, who were looking right at him, flinched towards the door before the thought of a bluff crossed their minds.  
York assessed. Almost everyone was moving calmly but very rapidly to the exit. The two reporters were exceptions. They were dirtsiders who lacked the lifelong reflexes of the spacers. The bartender had dropped out of sight behind the bar. York assumed correctly that he was rolling into an emergency capsule provided for the staff. The two miners had made one step each towards the door, but now they were stopped, rage and shock rolling across their faces in waves. They would be showing him why a hull breach was nothing to bluff about.  
He shot Slider in the chest and dove towards the two reporters. Grudge hit him in midair and the laser flew out of his hand. They landed in a heap and crashed against empty stools.  
The guy was protecting the scum of the universe. He had shouted 'hull breach' in a crowded room. He had shot one of Grudge's best friends. There wasn't any question or hesitation in Grudge's mind. He was going to kill this man. The guy was a fighter though. It wasn't going to be easy. He was a little more confused when the guy used a low grav judo move to throw him off, but instead of pressing for an advantage leapt away shouting, "Tango tango tango."  
The room had cleared in seconds. Kender had been caught flat footed, and by the time he connected the shouted warning "Hull breach" with any idea what to do about it the exit was a crush of flesh. Ban hadn't even left his stool. There was a dead guy not far from Kender's feet with a neat hole in his chest. No blood poured. The hole certainly reached the man's heart, but the flesh lining the hole was sufficiently charred to provide a seal. It took a sure hand to hold a narow beam laser spotted on a moving target and do that kind of damage. Not that it mattered, but most laser wounds were long shallower cuts left as the beam tracked across the target. Kender grabbed Ban's shoulder and spun him off the stool, intending to break for the door even if it was too late. The two men rolling on the floor trading grips and punches were in the way. Then the hammering started.  
People who had already been hurrying shot through the door and out of the bar as if they had been expelled from a cannon. What had been rapid movement away from the door to clear the way turned into just falling in front of the relentless push from behind as those in the rear tumbled over those who had gone before. York was fairly satisfied that all, or at least nearly all, were going to make it.  
The pounding was so loud that it immediately ended the fight. Grudge had pushed away and both men had sprung warily to their feet. Grudge glanced towards the viewport carefully, then forgot his opponent completely and turned in horror. Steel shutters had just started to slide into place, and they were going to be way too late. Deep pocks in the plasteel were already radiating cracks, which propogated faster and faster as they spread, and the mass driver rounds were still coming, pounding at the rapidly deteriorating barrier that stood between Grudge and the void.

On the bridge of Space Shadow a shout rang out, "Admiral on the bridge!" No one snapped to attention, or offered any other pointless military courtesy. It was just more information for the officer of the deck. The admiral had no intention of taking the conn in the swirl of controlled chaos. The slight shudders of launching fighters pulsed through the deck every eight seconds. There were two pulses slightly out of phase and he knew that one hanger bay had responded slightly ahead of the other. He watched the officer of the deck and listened carefully to make sure the junior man didn't miss anything.  
"Chokaro is out," came the report from target plot as the flash of a jump drive blinked in the forward view screen. "Three target falcons still aloft."  
"Scouts are thirty seconds out, missiles away," came from control plot.  
The OOD acknowledged both reports.  
"Target falcon two has engaged the trading station with mass drivers," came from the weapons officer.  
The OOD raised his comm link into position to give the order directly and said, "All scouts engage target falcon two, target falcon two. Port interceptors missiles on target falcon one, Starboard interceptors missiles on target falcon three."  
"Interceptors are missiles away."  
"Target falcon three engaged by local police."  
"Target falcon one engaging our scouts. Scout P4 under heavy fire. P4 is out sir, ejected."  
"Scouts have engaged target falcon two, falcon two has broken off their attack on the trade station."  
"Interceptors engaging. Fighters thirty seconds out. Fighters are missiles away."  
Three nearly simultaneous flashes near the trading station lit the viewport.  
"Targets have jumped. Targets have jumped."  
The engagement had lasted less than three minutes. The trading station's shields had barely been dinged by a few shots from the two falcons that were armed with lasers. No doubt the mass drivers had done a little damage, but in the grand scheme of things it couldn't have been much on the massive trading station. "What in Gunne's holy sack was that about?" the admiral asked under his breath.

"Eyes shut tight and don't hold your breath," York boomed as he dove into them. One strong arm locked around Ban, the other around Kender. Then the plasteel viewport shattered and the compartment explosively decompressed.

York opened his eyes slowly. It hurt. Everything hurt.  
"Welcome back," Pael Hang said, moving into view so York didn't have to turn his head.  
"How long?" His voice was a croak.  
"You've been sedated for three days. Enough to get you through the worst of it."  
He hurt everywhere, and he also felt the fog of pain killers that were still keeping it down to the harsh but manageable level. He tried not to think about how bad what they had sedated him through must have been. "Anything permanent?"  
"No. You'll be fine. If you were bucking for disability pay you missed. Impressive bonus though."  
York almost laughed, but thought better of it. "Packages?"  
"Both still sedated. Not that we are any more interested in sparing them pain, but the less they see the better. Drenad won't see anything anyway. He must have had his eyes open when the compartment blew. Puffin's Nest locked the transporter on as soon as you cleared the shields and you were still in atmosphere with acceptable pressure, but his eyeballs popped."  
"Popped out?"  
"No, just popped."  
Mercifully, the sedative levels came back up and York didn't give that much more thought.

The voice droned in the blackness. Ban Drenad knew he was in a space suit. The voice was a recording, broadcasting over and over through the suit's emergency beacon.  
"As concerned citizens of Herron's Nebula we could not allow esteemed members of the media to die aboard our trading station. The sector has already taken more than enough bad press. We had hoped to avoid any damage or injuries, but did not anticipate Ban Drenard being so stupidly arrogant as to walk into a bar full of miners and expose himself to their justifiable hatred. We regret the consequences of our rescue effort. Families of the two miners killed should be compensated by the newsvid network, who should also be held responsible for damages to the trading station...but if they don't pay we will."  
In his own suit, drifting at the end of a short tether, Kender knew the network would blame him for letting this happen, but at least he could see the approaching freighter that would take him home.


End file.
